Tuesday, December 16, 2008

L'Artisan La Chasse Aux Papillon Extreme & Frederic Malle Une Rose

Two quick things ~

First, I should have included L’Artisan La Chasse Aux Papillon Extreme in my post from a few days ago called Pick a Pepper. La Chasse is a gorgeous peppery linden-floral fragrance. If I wasn’t so annoyed with L’Artisan for their utter lack of tenacity surely I would have thought of this one. La Chasse is a beautiful delicate floral with a heavy dose of linden and a solid dash of pepper. Overall it’s a light and ethereal fragrance, I notice I used the word ‘heavy’ in the prior sentence and there’s nothing heavy about La Chasse – just that the most noticeable floral note is linden for me. I love La Chasse, and I just deal with the lack of staying power by spritzing myself about 12-15 times in the morning.

Longevity: reasonable if you apply 1/4 of the bottleSillage: lightRating: the scent is just so lovely I give it 4 stars even while grumbling about it's tenacity

PS: I should note that the original La Chasse Aux Papillon and the Extreme versions are quite different. The original does not contain pink pepper and therefore is much more delicate, girlish and simply pretty in a generic sense. The Extreme concentration is, once dried down, perhaps a bit more spicy/peppery than it is floral.

Second, whoooooaaaa, Brian sure was right when he wrote about Frederic Malle Une Rose being a stunning rose fragrance. I finally purchased myself a bottle and have been in a virtual fragrance-induced-coma all day. Une Rose is unlike any other rose scent I’ve smelled. It starts off like a bunch of lush, velvety crimson red roses ~ a perfect bouquet of David Austen roses that I just want to shove my face into. Then Une Rose does a lot of morphing around. The middle phase is a fresh earthy, mossy, herbal, garden bed with bushes of roses growing from it. The last phase, the dry down, is an unusual loamy-vetiver-earthy rose scent that strikes me as the aroma of an afternoon in the garden, down on my knees, hands in the soil, weeding, clipping the rose bushes and very much involved with nature and vegetation. Even though it smells earthy and loamy I wouldn’t call this a ‘dirty rose.’ Une Rose seems more like the true to nature smell of a bed of roses in a damp, earthy spring garden. And, if you haven’t smelled it yet, be prepared for a great deal of changing. Une Rose takes several hours to go through all these interesting stages on your skin. Each stage is so different, beautiful and unusual. I’ve read that wine dregs are among the notes in Une Rose. If I focus I can smell what seems like wine dregs, although had I not known this I don’t think I would have identified this note as wine. I think the wine-like note serves to keep the rose essence extremely lush and sweet all the while there’s so much damp and earthiness happening. If this sort of rose appeals to you ~ Une Rose is Hypnotic.

Longevity: Excellent, easily 5+ hoursSillage: depends on application, it will project if you want it to.Rating: 5 Stars, a stunner

4 comments:

Isn't Une Rose all that with a ribbon around it? There are a few bottle worthy Malles, I think, when I am ready to wrap my head around spending money like that. And I always end up coming back to Une Rose, even though "rose" is not my favorite scent category. UneR is rose done right; truly, interestingly both in depth and development, and honestly, just slam on wonderful to smell.

Good to know about the Extreme version of LChasse; I had no idea about the pepper, etc. I've been steering clear of the idea of "more" of the regular; the adjustments you mention make it worth giving a test run.

How do you feel Une Rose compares to Velvet Rose from Sonoma Scent Studio (assuming that you have smelled it?). Velvet Rose is the most intensely rosey-rose for me, and doesn't morph much, but if you were just comparing top notes?

I have not smelled Velvet Rose from SSS. I actually think I have a sample around here somewhere so will dig it out.

The top notes of Une Rose are very rosy - nearly a tea rose during the first five minutes. Other rose fragrances I can think of are a bit more mellow than this. Perhaps Annick Goutal's Ce Soir Ou Jamais is somewhat close to the first 5 minutes? But Une Rose really does morph. I can't underscore that enough. After 2-3 hours you will smell all sorts of loamy, mossy, spring-day-in-the-garden sorts of things.